Chapter 9
NINE
ELEVEN YEARS AGO
Ian
“You seem to really like that waitress,” my dad says as he pulls his Audi out of the sailing club parking lot and steers it onto the boulevard in the direction of our house.
I cross my arms over my chest and look out the window.
My head is whirling with thoughts of Josie, but I don’t really want to talk to my dad about her.
We come to a stop at a red light, and he turns to look at me.
“She must be the same Josie who signed the sailboat drawing that’s now hanging in my library. ”
My face heats. He rarely goes in that room, and I figured it would take him a while to notice it. “Do you want me to take it down?”
Dad presses the gas and accelerates into the intersection. “Not if you really like this girl,” he says, and for a second, I think I can almost hear warmth and affection in his voice.
I wonder if Dad ever felt about Mom the way I’m feeling about Josie.
Distracted. Like all I want is to see her again.
I almost got smacked in the face with the boom and ended up in the water during sailing practice because I was thinking about the way her full lips curve into a smile.
It’s not hard to imagine Mom having feelings like that for Dad.
She’s still madly in love with him two decades after they met.
But I have trouble believing Dad was ever capable of anything other than vague indifference for her.
“What’s her story?” Dad asks. “Is she from a local family or just here for the summer job?”
I don’t know why he cares except it probably has something to do with his plan for me to come back to the island and take over the business.
He wants me to end up with the right girl, somebody who will encourage me to consider the life of a wealthy real estate developer back here on Sandy Harbor Island.
“She’s a local.”
Dad nods in approval. It’s probably a point in Josie’s favor that she’ll be more connected to the island.
“Well, feel free to invite her over to the house to show her that sketch hanging in the library. It’s not every day a girl like that gets a chance to see an Akiko Walker up close,” he says, confirming my suspicions.
He wants me to impress her with our money.
But I think he’s going to be disappointed.
Even though I just met Josie, she doesn’t strike me as the kind of girl to be influenced by wealth and material things.
If she were, I doubt she would have pushed back when Cal was so obnoxious to her.
And I doubt I’d be having these feelings for her.
“Sure,” I mutter so we can stop talking about Josie.
We coast up the long driveway to the house and pull up to the security gate.
When the guard sees us, he presses the button to open the gate, and my dad gives him a wave as we drive past. I know the whole thing with the gate and security guard is mainly for show.
The guard is only a couple of years older than me, and it’s not like he’s armed or anything.
He’d never need to be on Sandy Harbor, where crime is nonexistent.
The guard is entirely there for Dad to uphold his image as the top real estate mogul and richest man in the state.
Dad parks the car in the curved driveway in front of the house, and I grab my bag and follow him inside. As soon as we step into the cavernous entryway, Mom rushes in from the kitchen to greet us, almost as if she were waiting with her ear pressed to the door.
“Darling,” she says, pulling me into her arms. “How was sailing practice?”
“I think we’re ready for the regatta.” I give her a squeeze in return and try to pretend I don’t hear her voice slurring. It’s after five, so she’s probably opened a bottle of wine already.
Mom reaches for Dad next, her eyes bright from a mix of the alcohol and joy of seeing him. He leans over to give her a perfunctory peck on the cheek and then heads toward his office.
Mom watches him with her hands crossed and a hopeful expression on her face. “Christopher, I’m making dinner tonight. Pasta primavera with asparagus, your favorite. I thought we could eat out on the patio.”
“You’re so good to me, Alicia,” Dad murmurs, but his eyes are glued to his phone. “But I had a late lunch and I’m meeting a client for dinner. I’m hoping to close the condo deal. How about a rain check for later this week?”
If Dad were looking at Mom, he’d see her face go pale and her eyes dim. But he’s already turned to leave the room.
“How about Thursday?” she calls with a desperate edge to her voice.
“Sure. Thursday sounds good,” Dad calls back, but he sounds vague and distracted, and I’m not sure he’s even registered what she said.
“Well,” Mom says with a sigh. “I think I’m just going to have a little glass of wine.” She turns and heads toward the kitchen.
I trail after her. On the counter is a grocery order, and I can see the ingredients for the pasta and asparagus she mentioned.
There’s also a half-full bottle of white wine and an empty glass.
I’m pretty sure that bottle wasn’t open in the fridge from last night, so she probably drank that today.
She picks it up and fills the empty glass.
“I’ll make dinner with you, Mom.” I hope the offer will cheer her up, and if she’s cooking, maybe it will slow down her drinking.
“Oh, that’s okay, darling,” she says. “I know you probably want to go out with your friends. The ingredients will hold until Thursday.” She takes a gulp of wine and wanders over to the French doors to look outside, where a dining table and chairs sit on the patio.
Stone steps lead to a lower level with a manicured lawn and the pool.
And another level down is the gazebo and dock that stretches over our private beach and out into the water.
Everything is so perfectly maintained by the garden staff and the housekeepers that a stranger would probably think we had the perfect life.
But I wonder if Mom would give it all up, if she would go back to the days when she and Dad spent all their money on that first little rundown bungalow that he fixed up in his spare time, if it meant he would pay attention to her.
Does she know what he’s doing when he goes out every night to business meetings?
It’s hard for me to imagine that she doesn’t, except that he’s an expert in fooling people.
He has this whole damn island believing he’s an upstanding guy.
If they looked a little deeper, they’d see the truth, but of course, they won’t.
Everyone is too dazzled by his money, his influence, and weirdly, even his aloofness.
He sits there disinterested and unimpressed, and people try harder to win his attention.
Sometimes it feels like everyone on this island worships him except me.
The one person he wants to follow in his footsteps sees right through him.
It wasn’t always this way. When I was a kid, I thought he could do no wrong.
I understood why all the people on the island went out of their way to talk to him, to fawn over him, including Mom, because I wanted his attention just like everyone else.
But then one night when I was about eleven, Mom was out of town, and I couldn’t sleep.
I tiptoed downstairs for a glass of water and found Dad and a blond woman half-naked on the couch.
I hurried back upstairs and never said a word.
I couldn’t tell Mom. Even at that age, I knew she drank too much, that a bottle of wine or two a night was not a normal amount, and that this could be the thing that wrecked her.
And I never said anything to Dad. What if I confronted him, and he left? What would we do then?
So, Dad kept sneaking around, kept bringing women home, and Mom kept drinking.
And I kept quiet.
Now I watch Mom down the wine and tip the rest of the bottle into her glass with a splash. Dad comes back into the room and gives Mom another vague peck on the cheek.
“Thursday,” Mom says, drawing out the word.
“What’s on Thursday?” Dad murmurs, checking his phone.
Mom presses a hand to his chest. “Our date, silly.”
Dad stares down for another beat and then nods. “Right, right. Of course.”
Sudden fury tears through me because I know that on Thursday, he’ll be distracted, distant, and checking his phone through the whole meal. And Mom will keep that hopeful smile plastered to her face. As Dad’s interest dwindles, so will Mom’s bottle of wine.
And that’s if he shows up at all.
For about the hundredth time, I wonder what would happen if I just blurted it out.
Dad’s cheating on you. He’s always been cheating on you. And he always will be. How can you not see it?
But I know if I do that, Mom will fall apart. She loves him so much, and she doesn’t have any resources to handle a betrayal like that. I’m leaving for Stanford in two months, nobody will be here to pick up the pieces.
So, instead, I do what I’ve always done. Dad heads out to meet his latest girlfriend, Mom opens another bottle of wine, and I look the other way.